EA Wants Anthem to Become a Franchise Like Star Wars: Battlefront

Electronic Arts has big plans for Anthem beyond its debut title. Speaking during the UBS Global Technology Conference 2017, EA Chief Financial Officer Blake Jorgensen alluded to wanting the upcoming MMO to spawn a franchise similar to some of EA’s other heavy hitters, reports GameRant.

“We’ve been able to bring out some great new titles that have turned into franchises, like the Star Wars activity, like Battlefront, for example, that layer in more franchises over time.”

Continuing, Jorgensen added that EA is “trying to do that with BioWare’s Anthem,” which he said is looking “very exciting.” Jorgensen recently played Anthem while on a trip to Edmonton where he visited developer BioWare, which he claims has so far done an “amazing job” on the game.

This isn’t the first time EA has talked about the big picture for Anthem. Executive Vice President of Worldwide Studios Patrick Söderlund told Microsoft’s Major Nelson in June that Anthem’s 2018 release would mark the beginning of a 10-year journey.

Gamers likened it to the heady talk out of Bungie and Activision Blizzard leading up to the release of 2014’s Destiny. That game received its first sequel in Destiny 2 this past September, officially making it a franchise.

EA would seem to have room for a new sci-fi franchise in its catalog, too. Following Mass Effect: Andromeda’s disappointing critical reaction and sales earlier this year, the publisher put the sci-fi RPG series on indefinite hold and merged developer BioWare Montreal with EA Motive. Meanwhile, the Edmonton BioWare studio that’s currently making Anthem was responsible for originally creating the Mass Effect series in 2007 when BioWare was an independent developer run by since-retired co-founders Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka.

Anthem is scheduled to launch on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in fall 2018.